Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict Review

Features and Modes

Unreal Championship 2 was designed with multiplayer in mind, but there is a lot to do for solo gamers as well. There is a story mode, tournament mode, and challenge mode that you can play through but they are basically just matches against bots so I won’t go into too much detail. You earn new mutators and characters by playing through the single-player modes so it is totally worth the effort. There is also an instant action mode for when you just want to jump in and kill stuff. The AI for the bots is really well designed and they provide a good challenge that will keep your skills sharp for multiplayer.

All of the gameplay modes you expect from a multiplayer shooter are present and accounted for in UC2. You can play deathmatch and capture the flag both in free-for-all as well as team games along with survival and a new mode called overdose. In overdose you find a colored ball and then deliver it to a goal of the same color to score points. You can adjust the rules in these games to play however you want as well.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer games are the meat and potatoes of Unreal Championship 2 and you won’t find a better deathmatch game on the Xbox. You can play two-player splitscreen as well as system link and Xbox Live with up to 8 players. The best part is that if you can fill empty slots with bots, even in Xbox Live games, to really experience the fast paced and frantic multiplayer matches the way they were intended to be. All of the customization options available in offline games are available online so you’ll be playing this game for months before you see everything the multiplayer has to offer. UC2 has a nice stat tracking feature that will let you monitor your favorite weapons and adrenaline powers along with your overall records. The game performs well online and the experience is smooth for the most part.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Unreal Championship 2 is a simply amazing looking game. The characters are smooth and great looking and the maps are all dripping with detail. Special effects for all of the weapons and adrenaline powers and explosions all look really nice as well. The game runs at a rock solid framerate which his a little bit surprising considering how great everything looks. I guess that is the difference between building this game from the ground up for the Xbox and having to port something to all of the systems. UC2 really takes advantage of the power of the Xbox and it shows.

The sound is also very nicely done. The music is a mix of epic military themes combined with pumping sports anthems and it fits the game perfectly. Unreal Championship is supposed to be a huge spectator sport, so the music is perfect. Each character has different taunts and there is some spoken dialogue in the story mode and it all sounds good. In a great addition, you can switch the announcer to the announcer from Mortal Kombat: Deception (since Midway is publishing UC2) and it adds another unique flair to this already exciting game.

Bottom Line

For deathmatch fans, Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is a must own Xbox title. There are so many customization options and so many modes and maps to play with that you can play this game for months and always have new scenarios and variations to play with. The promise of downloadable content in the future means that this game is only going to get better as time goes on. Unreal Championship 2 seamlessly combines first and third-person combat to create some of the most interesting and satisfying and smooth gameplay that the shooter genre has seen in a while. Every aspect of the game oozes quality and the sheer size of it makes it worth adding to your collection. Whether you plan to play by yourself or on Xbox Live, I highly recommend Unreal Championship 2 for a purchase.